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PORTLAND, Ore. - The man nicknamed 'Doctor Death' in
Australia is now
facing a $1.5 million lawsuit on top of his other troubles.

A husband and wife from Portland say Dr. Jayant Patel botched a surgery
that led to the death of their 3-year-old son.

The
McClellan family contends Dr. Patel failed them as a
surgeon. They also contend that hospitals and even the state, failed as
a system that was supposed to protect their son from doctors like
Patel.

The family's story begins back in 1999
when 3-year-old Ian went
in for a relatively simple surgery to put in a gastric feeding tube, a
surgery performed by Dr. Patel at Doernbecher Children's Hospital.

Ian developed an infection and Patel performed a second surgery, but
the boy got worse.

A different doctor then performed a third surgery.

"This
doctor said 'It doesn't look good. His whole bowel has
died. I mean, it's all necrotic.' And so, the option was basically
'we'll just have to close him up and you'll have time to call family.'
And that's what we did," said Ana Marie McClellan, Ian's mother.

The McClellans did not know about botched surgeries and
patient
deaths linked to Dr. Patel until last April when they saw a television
story about him.

"When I saw his picture, I knew that he was the surgeon
who had
operated on Ian," said Ana Marie.

"We thought
about our son's death in one way for six or seven
years and then one night, boom, it's all changed," said Matthew
McClellan, Ian's father.

The McClellan's lawsuit
also names Kaiser Permanente, the
organization Patel worked for, OHSU, and the Board of Oregon Medical
Examiners as co-defendants.

Kaiser Permanente and
the Board of Oregon Medical Examiners
would not comment, but OHSU seemed to distance itself from the case,
issuing the following statement:

"Dr.
Jayant Patel was granted a clinical appointment at OHSU, which
was related only to his service as a physician of Kaiser Permanente."

The McClellans claim all those organizations failed to
protect their
son from Patel and fear that system is still broken.

"You have years of this going on and it does make you
wonder, well who
else out there is going to be affected in the same way," said Matthew.

"If any one of those systems had cut him off at the legs, so to speak,
this wouldn't have happened," Ana Marie said.